The global food industry is at an inflection point. By 2050, the world’s population is projected to reach nearly 10 billion, demanding up to 60% more food than today. Yet agriculture, as it stands, is straining against its own limits: livestock farming consumes over 80% of agricultural land and accounts for 81-86% of the EU’s agricultural emissions, while providing less than a third of calories. Climate change is already reducing harvests of key commodities, such as cocoa, palm oil, and wheat. Supply chain shocks, water scarcity, and the cost of food inflation are all exposing some fragile elements of the global food system.
For decades, innovation in food production meant greater efficiency in industrial farming. Now, a new wave of foodtech is stepping up and beyond, reimagining the very building blocks of what we eat. In the next decade, consumers will have the option to choose not just between chicken and beef, they will decide between chicken grown in bioreactors, whole-cut steaks made from mycelium, or consume protein designed molecule-by-molecule by AI. These are not distant concepts — many of the companies developing cutting-edge food technology have already reached pilot or commercial scale, secured regulatory approvals, and raised substantial investment to bring their products to large markets.
Vestbee has analysed the current state of the foodtech segment in the world and Europe, highlighting investors’ sentiments, key trends, and diving deep into why its developments are so crucial.
The state of the global foodtech market
After a pandemic-fuelled boom, foodtech has matured into a high-potential VC category. Over the past 5-10 years, technological convergence, such as sensors, satellite data, robotics, CRISPR, precision fermentation, alt protein, and the widespread use of AI in the food sector, has created a foundation for scalable innovation. The next 1 to 3 years will be critical for foodtech as dozens of companies have now completed their R&D and, having received regulatory approvals, will be moving from lab to market. It is further highlighted by the structural underinvestments — food corporates spend just 0.4% of revenue on R&D (versus 18% spent in software and 12% in pharma).
To show it in absolute terms, the top 10 food and ingredient companies invest only $4-5 billion annually into R&D, whilst spending around $22 billion on M&A. It means that corporations are buying innovation instead of building it, making trade sales and acquisitions the dominant exit path for foodtech startups.
When it comes to the foodtech funding climate, it has cooled down after the H2 2021 peak but remains highly innovative and resilient. In 2024, the sector attracted $10.6 billion across 1,065 deals, a third of them for companies under three years old. The total capital deployed increased by 9.6% compared to 2023, but the deal count fell 30.1% YoY, as investors were more likely to write fewer but larger cheques, concentrating their bets on less risky startups with a clear road to market traction and substantial scaling. The slowdown in deal count deepened toward the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025:
- Q4 2024: $2.9 billion over 222 deals, and 12% QoQ deal count
- Q1 2025: $1.4 billion over 202 deals, capital down 49.6% QoQ, deal count down 15.1% QoQ.
As the deal count shrank, investor participation has also contracted - the number of active VC backers is down 54% from 2021 highs, and many generalist VCs have pulled back from foodtech, reallocating capital to sectors perceived as more insulated from consumer demand volatility.
Despite the slowdown, numerous new foodtech initiatives have emerged — from specialized VC firms that grasp the sector’s regulatory and operational nuances to accelerators deeply rooted in the scientific sphere and public bodies that foster innovation, such as the EIT Food. The investment capital tends to gravitate toward companies that have already achieved meaningful revenue traction and built business models aligned with long-term market themes such as sustainability, health, and supply chain resilience.
To further demonstrate the sector's resilience, it’s worth noting that it has already produced 150+ unicorns and multiple $1 billion+ exits — from food delivery (Deliveroo, Delivery Hero, DoorDash, Wolt) to online groceries (Ocado, Picnic) and alt-protein pioneers (Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, Oatly).
When it comes to exit environment, trade sales remain the primary liquidity path for foodtech startups. Corporations are actively buying revenue-generating, de-risked brands to accelerate portfolio transformation, as shown by PepsiCo’s acquisition of Poppi, a prebiotic soda brand.
2024 and 2025 standout foodtech funding rounds add links
- US earned-wage-access platform Tapcheck raised $25 million in a Series A extension led by PeakSpan Capital, alongside a $200 million credit facility from Victory Park Capital, to expand its payroll-integration services for restaurants and hourly workers.
- US industrial AI company Augury raised $75 million in a Series F round led by Lightrock, with participation from Insight Partners, Eclipse, Qumra Capital, SE Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures, maintaining its $1B+ valuation.
- US infant nutrition brand ByHeart raised $72.2 million to grow its ingredient-transparent, direct-to-consumer formula business.
- US prebiotic soda brand Olipop raised $50 million in a Series C round led by J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners, with backing from Monogram Capital Partners and other institutional investors, valuing the company at $1.85B.
- US B2B food-supply-chain marketplace GrubMarket raised $50 million in a Series G round from Liberty Street Funds, 3Spoke Capital, ROC Venture Group, Portfolia, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Joseph Stone Capital, and others, at a valuation above $3.5B.
Foodtech in Europe
DigitalFood Lab has reported that in 2024, European foodtech startups secured €4.1 billion in funding, just 2% below 2023 levels, marking a long-awaited stabilisation after a steep 57% drop from 2021’s peak. While global foodtech funding has plunged 72% since 2021, Europe’s more moderate decline has lifted its global share from 14% in 2020 to around 30% in 2024, cementing the continent as a key hub. Growth was driven by delivery megadeals in Germany and the Netherlands, and a surge in aquaculture and alternative protein investment in the Nordics, particularly Finland, where funding for new protein categories rose nearly 20% against a global downturn. Still, the number of deals continues to shrink, signalling a more concentrated market, with early-stage activity slowing.
The top foodtech transactions in 2024 were as follows:
- Dutch online grocery store Picnic raised €355 million in investor capital from Germany’s largest supermarket group, Edeka, and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust
- Finnish aquaculture company Finnforel, specialising in land-based recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), secured $261 million in a strategic growth investment from Mitsubishi Corporation to scale its sustainable “Gigafactory” model globally.
- German rapid grocery delivery startup Flink raised $115 million in a Series B round; investors were not disclosed.
- Czech online grocery and food retail tech company Rohlik secured $170 million in a growth capital raise from EBRD, the European Investment Bank, Sofina, Index Ventures, Quadrille Capital, and TCF Capital, combining equity and debt to accelerate European expansion.
- Estonian-UK autonomous delivery robot company Starship Technologies raised $90 million in a Series C round.
- Netherlands- and Switzerland-based AI protein-design platform Cradle raised $73 million in a Series B round led by IVP, with participation from Index Ventures and Kindred Capital.
- German precision-fermentation cheesemaker Formo raised $61 million in a Series B round.
- UK-based Basecamp Research, which uses AI and biodiversity data to accelerate protein and genome discovery, secured $60 million in a Series B round led by Singular, with participation from S32, Redalpine, André Hoffmann, Feike Sijbesma, Paul Polman, and existing backers True Ventures and Hummingbird Ventures.
- German mycelium-based alternative food producer Infinite Roots raised $58 million in a Series B round led by Dr. Hans Riegel Holding (HRH), with participation from the EIC Fund, REWE Group, Betagro Venture, Clay Capital, FoodLabs, Redalpine, Simon Capital, and Happiness Capital.
These big-ticket rounds, with the addition of fresh capital and post-IPO equity flows from listed players like Delivery Hero, kept the top-10 deal sizes steady for the first time in three years, with delivery, alternative proteins, and aquaculture dominating the headlines.
When it comes to unicorns, Europe hasn’t seen a wave of new foodtech $1 billion+ companies, neither in 2023 nor 2024, but the region still hosts many heavyweight scaleups that crossed the billion-dollar threshold in earlier years. The names are widely recognized, with the likes of grocery and delivery platforms (Deliveroo, Glovo, Wolt, Picnic, Rohlik), alternative-protein and ingredient plays (Oatly and others), as well as a number of SaaS and supply-chain platforms that service the sector. Broader foodtech unicorn counts have held relatively steady (DigitalFoodLab maps the category each year), underscoring that while new unicorn creation slowed in 2023-2024, Europe’s existing billion-dollar companies remain influential anchors for the ecosystem.
Why foodtech matters?
At its core, foodtech is the fusion of innovation and necessity — the application of new technologies across the whole food value chain. With global food demand expected to rise by 60% by 2050, and agricultural systems already strained by climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental limits, the sector is positioned as a critical lever for building sustainable, resilient, and profitable food systems.
- Smarter and leaner farms
Agriculture is being transformed by AI-powered analytics, high-resolution satellite imagery, drones, and in-field sensors that monitor soil health, predict disease outbreaks, and optimise irrigation and fertiliser use. The goal is to produce more food with fewer resources. These tools are already gaining adoption in high-margin crop segments, with investors eyeing scalable platforms that can serve both industrial and smallholder farmers.
- In the factory, redefining what food could be made of
Biotechnology is unlocking entirely new categories of food. Precision fermentation uses microbes to produce animal proteins like whey, casein, and egg white, without animals, cutting emissions and land use. Cultivated meat firms are growing real muscle and fat cells in bioreactors, offering a path to slaughter-free steaks and chicken fillets. Smart packaging solutions now track temperature and freshness in real time, while blockchain-based traceability reassures buyers about origin and authenticity. In processing plants, robotics and automation are boosting efficiency, cutting waste, and addressing labour shortages.
- Smarter retail with less waste
Retailers are adopting AI-powered inventory systems, dynamic pricing tools that sell products before spoilage, and redistribution platforms linking surplus food with charities or consumers. These models are attracting investment both for their sustainability impact and their potential to capture cost savings in a sector with notoriously thin margins.
- From restaurants to homes
Connected kitchen appliances — from AI-guided ovens to app-linked coffee machines — are bringing professional-level cooking to consumers. In food service, robotics is moving from novelty to mainstream: robot baristas, automated salad stations, and burger-flipping machines are now part of the quick-service landscape. The commercial kitchen automation segment is drawing attention from investors betting on efficiency in labour-constrained markets.
Where is the capital flowing?
Deal-flow analysis of the Q1 2025 foodtech spending shows where investor conviction is the highest. According to PitchBook, restaurant and retail technology is currently the top segment by deal value ($404M), encompassing innovations that streamline foodservice operations, such as autonomous transport for groceries, software and robotics for food retail, or tech for sales and operations.
Food production technologies and bioengineered functional foods are emerging as one of the fastest-growing segments, with $347.5 million spent in Q1 2025. Functional beverage brands like Poppi (acquired by PepsiCo for $1.7B) and Olipop ($137.9 million Series C at a $2B valuation) show how the growing focus of consumers on wellness has increased the demand for health-enhancing everyday food products.
Food e-commerce remains another heavyweight ($254.0 M in deal value), historically claiming over 30% of sector deal value and peaking at more than 80% in 2015, underscoring how profoundly it has transformed consumer interactions with grocers and restaurants. While mature players like DoorDash, Just Eat Takeaway, and Uber Eats dominate, innovation now focuses on upstream solutions, delivery aggregation, and AI-driven logistics to solve margin compression challenges.
The fourth biggest segment this year, the alt-protein market, although attracting $208M in Q1 2025, is dealing with perturbations. Public markets have been rough for established players like Beyond Meat, which reported its third consecutive quarterly revenue decline, contributing to a $1.1 million loss. Despite these challenges, early-stage investment remains strong in fermentation-based dairy and protein (e.g., Liberation Labs, Vivici), cultivated meat (Aleph Farms), and advanced plant-based formats (PROJECT EADEN).
Food for the future
As the world grapples with the approaching pressures of climate change, population growth, and resource scarcity, foodtech offers some promise, but it's not without its challenges. Critics caution that some of the food innovations, such as alt-proteins, though technologically impressive, rely on energy-intensive processes and massive infrastructure investments, raising questions about scalability and true sustainability. Moreover, concerns persist that the rapid rise of foodtech could marginalize small-scale and local producers, potentially deepening dependence on global industrial supply chains dominated by Big Food corporations.
Investors should also remain cautious, calibrating optimism with realism. Cases like Meati’s collapse after raising $500 million highlight that capital efficiency, regulatory pacing, and supply chain readiness are critical execution risks. Also, regulatory frameworks such as the EU Green Deal’s Farm to Fork targets will materially influence market adoption speed.
Despite these debates, foodtech undeniably shines a bright spotlight on the world’s most urgent food system challenges in ways that could ultimately help alleviate hunger and protect the planet. Market forecasts reflect this optimism: the global foodtech market is projected to grow from around $205-$250 billion in 2024 to an estimated $350-$601 billion by 2030, expanding at a robust 8.2% compound annual growth rate.
